New law enforcement
Bushman’s alternative to data retention
By Marko Schlichting
4/6/2023 4:16 am
Politicians and experts have been discussing the point of data retention in Germany for around twenty years. Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann is against it and explains to Markus Lanz how he wants to support criminal prosecution with another law.
Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann wants to save retained data in certain cases. The FDP minister has had a draft law drawn up for this purpose. The draft bill has been available for half a year. It regulates that investigative authorities can “freeze” traffic data for the prosecution of a serious criminal offense such as murder or sexualized violence against children. Data may therefore only be stored if there is initial suspicion against a specific person. Buschmann defended the project on Markus Lanz on ZDF: “Even the critics say that this procedure is 100 percent compatible with the constitution and European legislation.” This is why the previous laws have repeatedly failed: “They all overshot the mark.”
Bushman against general data retention
Its advocates believe that data retention, i.e. the storage of IP addresses and Internet contacts, is the only way to detect and prevent planned crimes in good time. Their opponents reject them because they consider them too intrusive to privacy. Lawyers also criticize that she violates the presumption of innocence in Germany. The FDP is also one of the opponents of data retention. Minister of Justice Buschmann says at Lanz: “I want what applies in the analog world to also apply in the digital world.” Even in the analog world, no one has to use a routing slip to record where they have breakfast, when they go to work and when they shop at lunchtime. And: “We already had a very extensive data retention system. The clearance rates were worse there.”
Shortly after the draft law was presented in October 2022, the SPD called for improvements. Since then, the traffic light coalition has been discussing it. The SPD is for data retention, the FDP and the Greens are against it. In March, the legal policy spokesman for the Union faction in the Bundestag, Günter Krings, called on the federal government to submit a draft law. In a Bundestag debate, he called it “scandalous” that the most serious cases of child abuse could not be continued due to the lack of a corresponding law. The Union had already submitted an application for IP address storage last September, which the Bundestag Legal Committee has still not discussed
Courts should push the envelope
Data retention is not the only topic when Lanz speaks to the Minister of Justice. Buschmann calls for tougher penalties for acts of violence against police officers and other law enforcement officials and sees the courts on the train here. “We have penal laws that allow for a strict keyboard. I would wish that the penalties would also be exhausted in accordance with the guilt.” In serious cases, prison sentences of 10 to 15 years are possible. These penalties could also be imposed, “on the one hand out of respect for the law, but also out of respect for those who are supposed to protect these laws. That’s why I can only appeal to all courts: Use the penal framework that the rule of law provides.”
At the same time, however, it is also important to research the reasons for the growing violence that emanates from adolescents and young adults. According to the minister, one must prevent young people from getting off the wrong track at all.